1. Technical Field
The subject matter herein relates generally to online content publishing and promotion.
2. Background of the Related Art
It is known in the prior art to provide and operate, as a service, a platform for video curation, publishing and monetization. In this approach, the platform is operated by a service provider as a managed or hosted service (software-as-a-service) that is accessible by users, who create video channels (or sites). After creating and customizing a channel site, the site creator can list the site in a public directory of video channels (or maintain the site private) and can send electronic messages inviting people to visit the site. Using a search tool, the creator (or others having permission) can cause the system to meta-search and then populate the channel with video content. Web users who visit a web address associated with the system receive a customized web interface that contains channel content and metadata, and that allows for various user interactions such as viewing, rating, comment, upload, sharing, playlist creation, video communities, and revenue sharing. The platform provides brands, publishers, and web destinations with a scalable and rapidly-extensible video curation platform that includes video discovery and curation technology to enables publishers to create large, high quality collections of content that they can share, contextualize, and monetize.
In 2006, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), an industry group, defined a video ad as a commercial that may appear before, during, or after a variety of content in a player environment. One type of digital video ad experience is “in-stream” video advertising. This refers to a video ad experience viewed within or around video content from a video player. One type of in-stream video ad is a “linear” ad that is presented before, in the middle of, or after the video content requested by a user is consumed. A linear ad that is presented before the video content is also known as a pre-roll.
It would be desirable to enable pre-roll to be configured and delivered on web pages in a video curation platform of the type described.